Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The arrival of Warhammer Online's 1.4.4 patch is coming up fast. We may see the PTS within a couple of weeks. As such, we are starting to get details on what changes we will see. Yesterday, developer Steven Engle posted a number of changes for the Engineer and Magus careers. Read on for the details!

-Field Repair moves to Rank 22. This ability is renamed to Shock Grenade. You remove stagger effects from your ally target and 5 others in a 25 foot radius around them.

A way to cleanse a stagger? Sounds great to me. Not only will this be very useful, it is an ability unique to to the Engineer/Magus! Of course, it cannot be used while staggered, so the player will have to pay attention to his position. When the rest of your team is staggered by that Knight/Chosen, you will be able to free them.

-Redeploy moves to Rank 3.

-Fixing the issue with Extra Ammo causing wild mobs to agro.

-Land Mine will no longer have a cast time. This should fix most of the issues of receiving an "Invalid Target" message on placement.

That Invalid Target error makes me want to throw my keyboard. I will be very happy if this solves the problem. Oh, and no cast time is a nice bonus too.

-Flak Jacket will no longer have a cast time. The value of the armor buff is reduced, but will stack with other armor buffs. The buff lasts 60 minutes and will no longer have the 20 hit removal condition.

No cast time is going to be great. I've had to wait on Flak Jacket for what feels like years of my life. Getting rid of the 20 hit removal is also a big plus, since it goes down faster than you'd think. The armor reduction kinda sucks, but now it can stack with other buffs. That gives potential for more armor than we had before.

Magus

-Strengthen Thrall moves to Rank 22. This ability is renamed to Shocking Jolt. You remove stagger effects from your ally target and 5 others in a 25 foot radius around them.

-Resummon moves to Rank 3. -Fixing the issue with Lasting Chaos causing mobs to agro. We are also fixing the tactic Chaotic Attunement.-Daemonic Infestation will no longer have a cast time. This should fix most of the issues of receiving an "Invalid Target" message on placement. -Daemonic Armor will no longer have a cast time. The value of the armor buff is reduced, but will stack with other armor buffs. The buff lasts 60 minutes and will no longer have the 20 hit removal condition.

Overall, I am pretty happy about these changes. Some players just want more damage, but that's not why I played this career in the first place. I've always wanted more utility, and these changes deliver it.